the other protected rivalries are PSU-Nebraska, Iowa-Purdue, Wisconsin-Minnesota, Michigan State-Indiana, and NW-Illinois, and

rumors that cross-division games are just tiebreakers are flatlining.

The only person dropping BREAKING RUMORS to the contrary is Dennis Dodd, who looks like Gollum and can safely be ignored.

Obviously those protected rivals are thoroughly stupid, and Michigan's going to have a tough hill to climb most years, but at least the other historical heavyweights have guaranteed matchups. Iowa and Wisconsin should have been paired with each other to make things even. I guess the MSU-Indiana game is slanted towards MSU but is that ever going to be relevant?

If all this stuff is true, and it's coming from so many different directions now that it almost has to be, Michigan and Ohio State fans can declare Mission Accomplished. At least 80% of the mission. #4 above is more an absence of crazy information than a presence of sane. I would like to see the first tiebreaker in divisions be overall conference record of opponents, even superseding head-to-head, but I don't think that's likely.

That's not good enough. The famous Texas-Texas Tech-Oklahoma 3-way tie wouldn't be decided with those tiebreakers.

If all 3 teams are in the same division and only have 1 loss each where: A beat B, B beat C, C beat A then you can't just go on head-to-head. And since their division record is the same you can't just go to that. The next logical tiebreaker is conference record. But if that's the same, then you need something else.

I had this discussion with a friend of mine. He convinced me that if there's a 3-way tie in a division, you shouldn't look at overall conference record, instead you should go right to strength-of-schedule. Whoever has the stronger strength of schedule of the 3 is the "winner". Then, whoever beat them is second place and the team that lost to the team with the best SOS is in last place.

Regardless, you need more tiebreakers than what you've currently listed.

I guess I don't see how this is Mission Accomplished. We saved the Game for the end of the year, but we've stripped it of all meaning. If both teams are playing for a chance to be in the championship game, when they won't be meeting in the championship game, because one team will eliminate one another.

Mark, how is any conference game ever meaningless? How does it mean any less in this scenario than it does currently? Both teams will have played their entire schedules before The Game. If one team has the championship on the line, the other can ruin it for them (just like now). If both teams have the championship on the line, the loser is likely out (just like now). If neither team has anything on the line, it's just for bragging rights and a better bowl (just like now). The only way it's different is if a 2006 scenario happens where, after The Game is played, UM and OSU are still the top 2 teams. In that case, they get a rematch. This will make the first game rather meaningless, but it will make the second one even bigger. This will rarely happen, but it will be epic if/when it does.

However, in almost every instance, this game is still very meaningful.

The first scenario you present will almost never happen. 2 teams who both have 2 losses, and have clinched the division before the final game, meaning they'd make the championship game with 3 losses - this is extremely unlikely. If one team has clinched their division, and the other is an also ran, it's no different than if that happened now. Let's say OSU clinches the Big Ten before the UM game this year. Is "The Game" then worthless? Absolutely not.

The reality of it is, very rarely will these all be determined before the last game of the year. You bring up extremely unlikely scenarios.

I'll bite. Let's say UM has one loss, OSU has 4 losses, and there are 4 undefeated teams so UM can't go to the MNC. Outside of mere bragging rights, UM can either enter the Big Ten title game as a one loss team, where they would be virtually guaranteed a BCS bowl whether they won the game or not, or they could lose to OSU, go into the champ game a two loss team, and need to win to go to a BCS bowl (Rose). This also might be the difference between finishing the season in the top 10 or not. Do you really think this is meaningless? Also, the coaches and players actually care about their record and want to win every game.

And again, with the quality of opponents in the Big Ten, I don't think this scenario is likely. There is no method that works perfectly in every crazy instance your mind can concoct.

How is this any different if they're in the same division, and one has locked it up? Couldn't they rest them for the Big Ten Champ game? Unless you're arguing against expansion...in which case, you're a bit late...

College football is not the NFL, teams never have the opportunity to run out their scrubs because every game has at least a modicum of meaning. I defy you to find a single instance in the modern bowl era of any team doing this. And if it has ever happened, it would have to be a sub-.500 team not caring about bowls.

On top of that, this scenario of a 2-loss team that has already clinched the conference (before the final regular season week is even played!) but is definitely out of the NC discussion is more than just unlikely, its borderline impossible. Even undefeated teams would have a minimum of two games, the last regular season week and their conference championship.

And this ignores a million other reasons why no team would ever do this, let alone either team in the UM/OSU rivalry: BCS standing, coaches' job security, players' stats, television or conference pressure, standard protocol, Bo and Woody turning in their graves

But don't you see that means that the game meant everything! The loser lost a spot in the NC title game. It's the exact opposite of what you're arguing.

Going into the M/OSU game, USC also had one loss and was a virtual lock to get the other spot in the NC game against the M/OSU winner, but they lost to UCLA the week after the OSU game. No one could predict they would lose to a bad UCLA game, and no one would predict with certainty that the loser of M/OSU would play in a rematch and not get bumped by Florida, that's revisionist through the lens of what actually happened. Even if every Coaches Poll and Harris Poll voter said in advance "we'll put the loser back in the NC game", it's absurd to suggest either team would have knowingly not tried in the game because they were sure they would make the national title game even if they lost. The BCS landscape changes in heartbeat, nothing is assured.

And again, this argument is all theoretical for some other game because when you're talking about OSU/Michigan, no one would let that be a game for backups, no matter what prize was in the offing the next week. A coach HAS BEEN fired for costing his team games against Michigan despite conference titles. His name was John Cooper.

Probably replace Wisky, Illinois, or IU with Nebraska and the rest of the schedule remains intact as our other two non-division game.

Overall, this result works. Keep OSU in the last weekend. The other teams can play their non-division rivalries earlier. OSU and UM could know more about where they stand in their half of the division going into their final non-division game. But that does not seem like that big a deal.

It could happen that UM and OSU both know they have a spot in the Big10 Championship locked up before the final regular season game, but that seems a likelihood so rare that it doesn't bother me nearly as much as the idea of moving the game.

I care less about the effect of one of them having a spot locked up because that is possible right now (ie, OSU or UM might know they are a lock for the Rose Bowl).

If either OSU or Michigan have a chance to get into the Big 10 Championship or caught in the standings by a third team, the other one will be happy to play spoiler. This game will still matter nearly every year. As long as 95% of the games are relevant, the rare "meaningless" game will still be hard fought because the character of the rivalry is preserved and winning will still matter to the players.

I was more worried about a change that would alter the character of the rivalry that resulted in meaningless games that occurred with regularity.

Making it so conference record is all that matters (before tiebreakers) to getting into the championship should help, too (ala the SEC).

to have OSU, Wisconsin and PSU on the other side. Michigan has a good shot of winning division in '11 when the team is loaded, especially on the offensive side.

Looking at from a basketball perspective, it's a very weak division with MSU as the only superpower with OSU, Purdue, Indiana, Wisconsin and Illini duking it out for the division title. MSU has to be happy with the division setting if it were true. Same with Michigan since they most likely only have MSU as their biggest obstacles for divisional conference tourney seeding.

the divisions that is announced will be for football only. However, there will be division for basketball(it will be different, most likely geographical type of divsion). My tournament tree still applys.

The first thing I thought when I read that PSU-Nebraska is a protected rivalry was... what? Most of those really don't make much sense to me. Does anyone actually know how much of a rivalry PSU-Nebraska really is?

It's a rivalry just as modern and contrived as their conference membership. Seriously though, I think they may have played in a couple big games in the 80s during the glory days. Back when Tom Osbourne was earning national titles and not being given them, gold watch style.

Osborne didn't win any nat'l championships in the 80s. Nebraska perenially got to the Orange Bowl (when they beat OU) and then lost to a team that was faster. His first nat'l championship came in '94, which was kind of a screw job on Penn State, so I guess there's your rivalry.

I think those protected games make a lot more sense if you think about them as balancing the schedule for teams of equivalent (historical) strength - i.e. if Michigan and Ohio State had to play each other out of division each year and Penn State and Nebraska didn't, the latter two would almost always have an easier conference schedule (again, historical speaking <sigh> ) And of course there's probably the real reason behind the above reason - more top-vs-top games means more TV $$$. But in this case since it means we get better games, I think it's win-win. Rivalries have nothing to do with it, though if PSU and N play each other every year, particularly with divisional title implications, then 10 years down the line it'll probably turn into a decent rivalry.

Besides all that, isn't it logical to pair those two together, especially when the other two of the Big Four are archrivals? PSU at last gets a worthy final-game opponent, and Nebraska gets an exciting new rivalry against the other (relative) newcomer.

Not only does MSU semi-annually play Notre Dame just as we do, but they have recently had a home and home with Cal, but also have a home and home with West Virginia in 2014-15 and a home and home with Alabama in 2016-17. There's a lot to rip on MSU about without making things up.